VMware Fusion provides a nice functionality of sharing folder from host (Mac OSX) to guest (Ubuntu). But then, it seems they are more focused on windows guests, because they screwup on file permissions of shared folders.

"ls -al /mnt/hgfs" will show 501 dialout as user and group, which is sure to cause permission issues on linux guest.

Update: Found a more persistent alternative

1. sudo vim /etc/vmware-tools/services.sh

2. Search for 'vmhgfs_mnt="/mnt/hgfs"'. After this line add: 'vmuser=${VMWARE_MNT_USER:-root}'

Sometimes when upgrading VMware, I noticed that I can no longer share directories between my local file system and the VMs file system.

In an effort to get shared folders working, I would then go to the following location in VMware:

Virtual Machine -> Sharing -> Sharing Settings …

I would accurately see the folders I want to share and I would see that Shared Folders is “ON”. In an attempt to re-share the folders I toggled Shared Folders to “OFF”. I then toggled it back to “ON” and noticed the following error: